Elections are fun and all, but politics is actually about governance, innit? With that notion in our heads, let us make a quick examination of the GOP healthcare, unveiled this week.

It's a hodgepodge of stuff the GOP has been saying for years. Tort reform to limit damage awards. Health savings accounts. Et cetera. Boring.

But here's something that isn't boring. For months now, many Republicans have been saying things like, "Hey, listen, everyone is for not letting insurance companies deny people coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and for not letting them throw people off the rolls if they have a catastrophic illness. If the Democrats offered a modest bill that did just those two things, we'd have bipartisan healthcare reform." You can see two conservative senators saying that here.

So the GOP comes out with its plan, and lo and behold guess what? Ezra Klein:

"A House Republican health-care bill wouldn't seek to prevent health-insurance companies from denying sick people insurance," the first paragraph of the Wall Street Journal's preview of the latest Republican health-care reform alternative says. "Republicans also wouldn't prevent insurers from ending policies once an individual becomes seriously ill," reads the fifth. On the bright side, the Republican bill would allow insurers to base themselves in whichever state has the weakest regulatory standards and then sell policies built around those rules nationwide. If you've ever thought that your insurance was too comprehensive, too straightforward, and contained too few loopholes that you didn't learn about until you feel terribly ill, then this is the plan for you!

Actually, there is a provision to create high-risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions. Gee. High-risk pools. What do you think insurance companies would charge for those? It's a totally unserious fig-leaf kind of a notion.

They just aren't serious about governance. Remember, they had six years of a GOP president and GOP majorities in both houses to do something, anything about expanding health care coverage, and they didn't.

I can understand people hating government, or considering abortion immoral, or despising taxes. And more. I really can. But I really can't understand anyone thinking that Republicans are serious about governance. They just prove over and over and over again that they are not.